


The Legacy of Markus Velafi

by generic



Category: Corsairs: RIFTS (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-16 14:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16087745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generic/pseuds/generic
Summary: Our new Corsair agents meet the demon of the Commonwealth.





	1. A Brief Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> hey I have no idea where this is going so it's probably not going to be especially plot-heavy?

He was…harmless honestly. Oddly. Because by all accounts, Markus Velafi must be an incredibly powerful being. His age predated the existence of the Corsairs by an unfathomable number of years, and he was able to slip in and out of their top-security base – their top-security _files_ – seemingly at will, for fun. But that’s all it ever was: fun. Certainly, it shocked security into a positive _frenzy_ when it first happened, way back in the day. The Commonwealth was still treading very carefully with their newfound technology and their newly taken responsibility, when in waltzed (literally, records say) a mustachioed gentleman of indeterminate age, demanding to be put in their records as a “foul and terrible being, of great and fashionable power: Markus. Tannhauser. Velafi!” Then he blew a kiss and disappeared.  


Well. They poured resources into chasing him for _years_. It seemed almost ridiculous now, hindsight and all, but the Corsairs at the time had genuine reason to be afraid of this unknown chaotic entity having entirely unrestricted access to their resources; they had no idea how hostile his intentions were. But, despite the best and incredibly persistent efforts of those early bounty hunters, they could never find Velafi any more than he wanted to be found, never got an inch closer than he wanted them to be, and, what eventually became very apparent, he never allowed anyone to get injured in his bizarre goose-chase game. The only thing he seemed to want from them was the notoriety their attention gave him, so the leaders finally sat down and proposed their most risky tactic in dealing with this problem: to do nothing. Ignore him. And brace for any backlash from slighting the demon hounding their base.  


It didn’t take long for Velafi to notice their abrupt retreat. The next time he came on board, he suddenly found that his self-made file was still in place, and the halls were empty and still. Several minutes passed while he paced around the facility curiously, and security held their collective breaths behind their monitors, poised to call their forces out. Instead, Velafi finally turned to one of the security cameras hidden in the wall and gave a sheepish, almost sad, little smile and disappeared.  


Not for good, of course, but his visits eventually tapered off to every few decades or so when he would pop in to update his list of “crimes.” Each time, somebody somewhere would try to kick up a fuss about making another go at bringing Velafi in, but given their now hundreds of years of evidence, they simply couldn’t justify the expense and effort it would inevitably take to wrangle their elusive magic man. Instead, they contented themselves with adding extra monitoring measures to keep an eye on him, and otherwise let his legacy pass on as the unspoken rule between generations of Corsairs.


	2. An Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zach and Evelyn are walking from the market  
> No one's around and the halls are dead  
> Out of the corner of their eyes, they spot him...

Walking out of the market, Zach had to keep craning his head back every so often to Evelyn, trailing a half-step behind, while he continued describing the finer points of gun safety, thoroughly detailed with examples and elaborations.  


“…and that time it actually only _sprained_ his wrist, but the point still stands…”  


Evelyn, for her part, was nodding attentively. Zach was certainly well-informed and well-spoken, but even though Evelyn was gaining a very thorough introduction to proper gun-use, she couldn’t help but feel that Lucien’s offered advice to “hit what’s soft and then run like hell” was better suited for her style of…field work. Still, Zach seemed to enjoy the role of tutor, and Evelyn appreciated the sentiment behind it. During the months following their official entrance into the Corsairs, she and Zach - and everyone, really, in their own way - had become closer. Gotten used to each others quirks and strengths. Running into Charlotte after a few solo missions, even she expressed surprise at how close they seemed to have gotten outside of work. No one of them on their own was especially easy to talk to. For various reason. 

Evelyn turned her attention back to her friend to offer some response to his on-going lecture on the importance of stance and aiming, but something down the long corridor caught her attention instead. It...struck her in an odd way, and Zach's words seemed to fade into the background while she suddenly began running through a mental catalog. 

Zach glanced back briefly to see Evelyn's steps slow and eyes narrow slightly in concentration - it was the same look when she was studying or sometimes talking to Domhnall. He waited patiently until her eyes popped wide, but instead of an interruption or question or clarification, her hand darted out and snagged the back of Zach’s shirt, bringing him to an abrupt halt.  


“Whoa, hey!” Zach began turning fully around to see what provoked such a forceful reaction from Evelyn, but she shoved his shoulder back around and pointed.  


A distance away, tall, lanky man walking out of the operators’ wing with a casual, swinging confidence. In a facility this large, the new Corsairs seeing an occasional unfamiliar face was no reason for concern, but the bright spot of color in their clean, monochrome space was at least surprising. As a general rule, any official Corsair business, encompassing everything from work to class to meetings, was to be done within the Corsair dress code. Unless explicitly on leave, people tended to go day-to-day in regulation clothing, making the cape, its bright violet lining, and the dark green trousers all an incongruous image.  


It was a little late for someone to be in the offices, and Zach gave a curious, “Huh,” before lurching forward once more, hand already half-waved.  


“Hey! Hey there. What, uh…what’cha up to?”  


Evelyn made a small noise of distress from behind him and, again, grabbed him back.  


“ _Wait!_ No, what- what are you _doing?_ Don’t- You can’t go-” Evelyn’s sentences started breaking up in frustration until Zach looked at her.  


“Evelyn, _come on._ Listen, I get it. You get…” he looked at her slightly frantic eyes. “…nervous around new people. But he’s just another Corsair. Like us!” Zach turned to the man down the hall, now looking their way, and back to Evelyn. He resisted the very patronizing impulse to pet her head and tried a reassuring smile instead. “Actually, it looks like he just came back from some kind of special-requirements mission, we should go talk to-”  


“ _Listen,_ ” Evelyn almost begged. “He’s not a Corsair. He’s not- He doesn’t _belong_ here.”  


That finally made Zach stop. Evelyn could have cried in relief when his expression suddenly shifted and his stance straightened. He reflexively gave a quick sweep around their empty stretch of hall, and he leaned in toward her.  


“You’re sure about that. Absolutely? He’s not going to walk up to us and introduce himself as the regional director of the Commonwealth or something,” he asked, more for his own sake than to confirm Evelyn. She was already shaking her head, and now that her initial frustration was gone, he could see the confidence that didn’t often show up except in clear, evidence-based information. Facts. _Intel._  


“And, I think…he’s dangerous. But I can’t- he’s too far to tell for sure…”  


Zach squared his shoulders and breathed a quick sigh. He could count on Evelyn for this; he would have to. “Well, we’re about to meet him. You let me know, alright?”  


“Well, you let me know, because we’re about to meet him.” They walked down the hall together.  


“Hello!” the man called out as he neared. His obtrusive, almost comical, mustache made his expression a little hard to read, but he seemed to be smiling. “And what is bringing you two down to _this _little corner of the world at _this_ hour?”  
__

____

“Yeah, um. Hi,” Evelyn piped up after a moment’s hesitation. “I- I mean we. Well, not ‘ _we_ ’ – me and-“  


“ _We,_ ” Zach slipped in next to her and threw a quick, familiar arm around her.  


She looked up at him and carefully nodded back. 

"Right," and held the eye contact for just a moment longer.  


Then she turned back toward the man. Zach disengaged and took a slow, casual step back to let Evelyn take the attention. He needed to concentrate.  


“Right…so we just saw you coming from the offices and thought you looked, ah, lost? Maybe?” As she began speaking, her hands fluttered around her like leaves in the wind: behind her back, up to her chest, brushing her hair, crossed in front, back up to her hair…and every so often her fingers would brush against the sleek bracelet around her wrist. The man watched her with bright, attentive eyes, and watching him was Zach.  


“…or maybe you aren’t lost! But we didn’t recognize you, and it’s late so we thought, ‘Hey, that’s kind of weird; let’s go talk to him!’ and um… I don’t know, we love…meeting new people?” She faltered for a second, trying to smooth over making any suspicions they had apparent. Her words quickened while she let her weight shift, punctuating her sentences.  


Off to their side, Zach didn’t let his expression change but…he wasn't able to reach the man's surface level thoughts. Nothing. It made him feel antsy. Evelyn was still doing everything she could to keep their target on her, not daring to even look away to gauge Zach’s progress. Just a little longer. He refocused and tried to expand his mind outward again, more carefully this time.  


“…do, uh, you look like you know your way around…here… Do you know Wansook?” Evelyn finally stopped, slightly out of breath, and gave what approximated an encouraging smile. The man smiled patiently back down at her, and she blinked at a sudden, absurd thought, ‘ _Wow, he’s almost as tall as Domhnall._ ’  


“I am familiar,” he said with hands clasped lightly behind him.  


_Damn_ , but Zach still wasn’t getting anything. He was starting to get antsy; people didn’t just _walk around_ with psychic blocks up. He was hiding something. But if he pushed much more like this, he’d be noticed. Fortunately, Evelyn had opened the floor, so to speak, and he could try something a little more direct.  


Zach nodded and stepped up to Evelyn’s side again. “I don’t think she’s in right now though. Think you could tell us what you needed in there?” he asked, drawing some of the cadence out in his voice. There was never a good way to describe what Zach did; there wasn’t quite a visual, not quite a feeling, just a _presence_ that his words carried to another person. And if Zach was as good as he wanted to be, worked to be, he had used a light enough touch. Even if he couldn’t get in, he didn’t want it to be detected, but that was a fine line, difficult to determine without knowing how attuned to psychic powers someone is-  


Stellar blue eyes flicked over to Zach felt himself freeze. Just for a second, his mind stopped turning over outcomes and options, and he felt caught – _fuck._  


Then his training kicked back in and he made his shoulders relax. That had been a very _deliberate_ rebuff. There was some serious power hidden in this guy, who was now appraising Zach with a bright, playful expression.  


“No. I don’t think I will.”  


Evelyn bit her lip and moved a half-step closer to her friend. Still keeping her gaze firmly in front of her, she brushed her bangs aside with two fingers, softly bumping her arm against Zach for his attention. She’d felt him tense up; could only assume that his approach hadn’t worked.  


Subtlety was quickly moving down their list of priorities or even options, but Zach was still the talker of the Spender brothers. Surely he could stall for two more minutes. Evelyn kept him distracted, now they just needed to keep him _here._  


“Sure, sure. I get it, confidential meetings.” Zach drawled out his words lazily. Cor absolutely hated when he did this. “Just a coupl’a new recruits here. Maybe we can pick your brain for some advice sometime.”  


“I think you’ll find that I’m rather difficult to get a hold of.” He looked incredibly pleased with himself, the fucker. “In fact, I was just on my way out now.”  


“Right, of course. An important man like yourself…” Zach signed and rolled his neck before shrugging at Evelyn. “Then I guess there’s always plan two.”


End file.
